Marion Hänsel
Directing
Biography
Marion Hänsel (née Ackermann; 12 February 1949 - 8 June 2020) was a French-born Belgian film director, producer, actress and screenwriter.
Known For

The series follows a group of Allied pilots who crashed in occupied territories during WWII. A network of civilians and Resistance fighters, "La Filière", is in charge of helping them pass from France to Spain so they can avoid capture.
The Line

Two soldiers from opposite sides get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?
No Man's Land

A cargo ship is stuck on the Canadian Saint Lawrence River for repairs. Traoré, an Ivory Coast mechanic is unjustly accused of causing the damage.
Diego Star

A renowned conductor suddenly pulls out of an evening rehearsal of Madame Butterfly. The opera director senses something is going on and forces the musician to explain himself.
Il maestro

Though its aftertitles detailing the history of French nuke experiments suggest otherwise, writer/director Marion Hänsel’s Black Ocean is not a political treatise or a history lesson, instead taking advantage of the remote, isolated environments in which the experimentation took place – as well as the monumental imagery of the act itself – in order to communicate a more universal story about the power of awe. Ocean principally follows three young sailors on a French naval vessel in 1972, who are on course for an unknown destination in order to help carry out the bomb tests they’ve yet to personally witness. The film is essentially divided into two parts: before and after the blast.
Black Ocean

Everything changes in the life of a young 15-year-old Chukchi hunter Lyoshka with the advent of the Internet in the village. He falls in love – for the first time and deeply – with the silent video chat girl. Upon learning that she lives in Detroit, Lyoshka decides on the most desperate act in his life.
The Whaler Boy

Three sisters who share a connection to a violent childhood incident reunite for the chance to come to terms with their past.
Hell

The intertwined lives of two women in 1970s France, set against the progress of the women's movement in which Agnes Varda was involved. Pomme and Suzanne meet when Pomme helps Suzanne obtain an abortion after a third pregnancy which she cannot afford. They lose contact but meet again ten years later. Pomme has become an unconventional singer, Suzanne a serious community worker - despite the contrast they remain friends and share in the various dramas of each others' lives, in the process affirming their different female identities.
One Sings, the Other Doesn't

Story of two gorgeous, young French boys who begin a passionate relationship that boils over and threatens to destroy both their lives. Shy 18-year-old Mathieu is on summer vacation in the south of France. He spends his days lazily sunning himself at the beach, until he spies the handsome Cédric and falls in love.
Come Undone

Antwerp in the fifties. Robin de Hert grew up in a Catholic parochial environment; on the one hand there is his authoritarian father and the sadistic secretary of the Catholic boys technical school, on the other hand there are the 'Grieten' and the French teacher with whom Robin is getting a good band through a secret they share. If the secretary finds out about this secret, this has major implications for both the teacher and the students ...
Blueberry Hill

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.
Sounds of Sand

The personal and professional story, told in first person, of Spanish actress Carmen Maura, director Pedro Almodóvar's first muse and a brilliant artist in her own right.
¡Ay, Carmen!

Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1991. After the fall of the communists, Divko Buntić, who has lived in exile in Germany for the past twenty years, returns to the village where he grew up, intent on reclaiming ownership of his family home, driving a swanky Mercedes and accompanied by his young bride; by Bonny, his lucky black cat; and with pockets full of money.
Cirkus Columbia

A South African spinster murders her father after he rapes the wife of the black foreman for his plantation.
Dust

A Greek-Irish sailor becomes friends with a 10-year-old sampan girl while his freighter is docked in Hong Kong.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

An Ukranian woman enters Belgium illegally and hides in the van of a driver abandoned by his wife. He ends up helping her to find her husband who had emigrated long before. They are joined by his wacky Spanish mother and cute young daughter.
25 Degrees in Winter

Marion Hänsel directed this personal meditation on the joys and responsibilities of parenthood, in which a narrator reads Hansel's philosophic musings on raising her young son on her own, while carefully shot and selected footage of different cloud formations from around the world provide a striking visual backdrop. Catherine Deneuve read Hänsel's text in the original French-language version of Nuages; Charlotte Rampling did the honors for the English-language print, while Barbara Auer, Carmen Maura, and Antje De Boeck respectively lent their voices to the German, Spanish, and Dutch editions of the film.
Clouds: Letters to My Son

This thriller investigates the mysterious assassination of a gay pastor in rural South Africa. Without witnesses or explanations, the crime appears to the police and others as a jigsaw puzzle without enough pieces. The police then suspect and arrest people based on the usual prejudices, black and coloured people who plant marijuana in this case. Meanwhile, the true assassin not only goes his way unpunished from the very beginning, but becomes one of the rural town's most respected citizens. The sheriff at one point does begin having certain suspicions, and from there on the bulk of the plot is played out. The location is a very arid part of South Africa, so with so much desert rock, there are bound to be quarries. Some may reveal important secrets.
The Quarry

Gilles' wife, Elise, who smiles when she thinks of him, cooks and scrubs and cheerfully makes love to him, suspects during her third pregnancy that he is having an affair with her coquettish younger sister, Victorine. Elise suffers, usually in silence. She listens to her husband rave; she asks her priest; she breaks picture frames; she weeps. She decides on a strategy to keep him. Will she succeed?
Gilles' Wife

This is the first film by Hänsel based entirely on her own script and gives a wise and loving significance to the concept of personal and anecdotal. With beautiful leading roles by Canto as mother and Gourmet as her ex. Together, they drive to a ski resort to fetch their son, a ski instructor with a broken leg.